Rayguns and Rockets and Princesses and Dice

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note: This is an as-yet untested Draft Scenario, so some playtesting may be required to make it work well.

Watch-station x-25, hidden within the ice-teroid belt around the dead-star Glork, is tasked with monitoring enemy transmissions and broadcasting our propaganda while jamming that of the enemy along our spin-ward border.

Trouble is, it’s gone silent and the last report was of an enemy fleet trawling through the location, presumably looking for the station. If they capture the station and get enough time with our machines they can break our secret codes. And that could mean not only changing the whole code system again, but also leaving in the lurch all our agents who won’t know the code system has been busted.

So we must burn at full speed to find out for sure, to see if the enemy has Watch-station x-25, and if so to Destroy it!

Time for another scenario. This one is designed assuming two players neither of whom have read the scenario, and a 3rd to set it up and oversee things.

Player Info:
Forces: Equal construction points for each side, of a size that suits both players

Set Up: divide the map in half, at a slight angle, with a wide band of asteroids or ice-teroids ideally 3 hexes wide if you have enough pebbles or the like. At the centre of this place a model or marker for the derelict Watch-Station. The station is manned by only a tiny crew, so is similar in size to a war rocket.

The Derelict: The derelict watch station is made to handle a lot of collisions and so is quite heavilly armored. it is Defence 3. However if currently unoccupied a watch station can be set to self-destruct by a boarding party, though this will mean entering the asteroid/ice-teroid field to do so. Each side is trying to get to the Station first, examine it, which takes 1 turn, then either blow it up of try and keep it intact and in their possession by the end of the battle.

Overseer only beyond this point! SPOILERS! Players should read no further!

Dr Zahn studied the strange alien machinery beneath the ancient tower rebuilt by the Zenithians, his brilliant mind running through calculations of obscure mathematics faster than any computer less than 9 stories tall. He had to work quickly, the parylyso-gas would only last for a short while and Imperial reinforcements were sure to arrive soon. While the energy flow indicators meant this must be but one of numerous such devices with some distant control centre this one had been focussed on by the Saucermen for a reason. There it was! His keen eyes spotted where the careful application of an interference substance had been applied to some of the stone in order to deactivate part of the originally intended circuitry within the lattice matrix of the stone. The Zenithians had in effect reprogrammed the device. Probably it was a device intended to create some special form of stable wormhole, possibly in order to increase the effective lifespan of the ancient star. The Zenithians had changed it to turn it into something altogether more dangerous, at best a Weapon of Cosmic Destruction and at worst something altogether less imaginable. Just switching the device off would be no good if the singularity was already forming, it might slow the growth of the black hole but it wouldn’t stop it. Instead he calculated the best option would be to allow the ancient devices self-regulating stone circuitry programming into effect. He carefully mixed the chemical ingredients to dissolve the interference and set the chemical grenade on a medium fuse, just long enough to drag the paralysed guards to safety….

Mere minutes after the grenade had gone off spraying the chemical that dissolved the Zenithian sabotage away a great massive structure emerged from underneath a gigantic sand filled crater on the neighbouring sunward planet Parva Draco, a huge stone structure that defied all the known laws of physics as it swiftly flew into space leaving a trail of falling sand in an arc that fell all the way back to the planet. The machinery of the Ancients was now activated!

On Monday Brylan, one of Taphyl’s brothers, was back in town after spending some time overseas so I joined the guys to hang out for the afternoon. There had been talk of playing some Warhammer 40,000 but Brylan asked if we could play War Rocket instead. Luckily Taphyl had asked me to bring my stuff in case of such a possibility. Brylan had played the Space Pirates before but this time decided to try the Galacteers. Taphyl decided to again play the Zenithians and of course I played the Empire. I’d not brought my camera though so one of theirs was used.

We set the battlefield up together. The ice rings of Dormientes Draco have grown thicker, and Taphyl provided the strange ancient artefact. The perfect objective for the game. The goal: The Imperial patrol, having just finished guarding the ship collecting the survivors of the last battle before intending to head to investigate the damage done to the Watch Station by the Space Pirates (see last battle report) have been alerted to the massive strange stone structure now in a stable orbit near the planet Parva Draco and have delayed the mission to the watch-station to give the stone construct a quick flyby when astro-radar detects two incoming fleets both of whom need to be kicked out of Imperial-claimed territory! Meanwhile alerted to the Zenithian cause of the looming galactic disaster the Galacteers are trying to stop a Zenithian task force intent on boarding and destroying the giant artefact!

This time it’s me in the background having just deployed the Imperial ships